alternatehistory.com

In 1946, the surviving Nazi leaders are on trial in Nürnberg (that's Nuremberg). Hitler, Goebbels, general Keitel and Himmler committed suicide before (the last one, before the Wehrmacht could arrest him), but Bormann, Göring and Ley survived. The world is in horror when they learn about the full details of German slave trade, and even worse, the mass killings of more than 4 million Jews. (I couldn't make it much better than OTL, with the nazis standing that strong, but at least it's almost 2 million more survivors.) Although Truman wants the Germans as potential allies against Stalin, he can't but decide that a denazification and reeducation of Germany is necessary, so it happens similar to OTL. Or maybe not exactly - the Wehrmacht wants to shift the blame to the SS and the NSDAP and helps the Allies finding many nazis.

Sorting out the situation in Germany takes longer, while Germany's other allies in Europe make peace treaties in 1946 already, with same results as OTL. Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia are restituted meanwhile. Stalin demands territorial acquisitions (means: More than the lands won from Finland and Romania) and participating in the German occupation. And the French and Poles demand dismemberment of Germany. Finally a compromise is found. Poland gives Wilna back to Lithuania and most of the area east of the Curzon line to Russia (except East Galicia with Lemberg), but receives all of East Prussia and the Eastern half of Pomerania and Silesia. When Churchill pleads for Stalin, Truman agrees, but under the prerequisition that the US can monitor the Russian occupied zone. The new government protests against Stalin's occupation, but has to let Soviet troops occupy Germany. (But it's less bad than OTL: The Germans are forewarned by the Americans, and many rich people - and former nazis - can flee to the west.) In fall 1946, Germany is divided in four zones - Brits in West and NW Germany and Eastern Austria, Americans in Hesse, Bavaria and the rest of Austria, French in Baden, Württemberg and the Palatinate, and the Soviet Union in Eastern Germany. The Red Army had to be transported via the Baltic Sea, since the other nations wouldn't allow them to cross their territory. Stalin still grumbles because his country had the highest toll to pay and receives almost nothing in return. (He has Finland, however. And the opportunity to strip his part of Germany of factories, rails, and everything valuable.)

Meanwhile the Marshall plan has been implemented and includes the Eastern European countries (except the Soviet Union, Finland, and East Germany). In Southern Germany, Ludwig Erhard started the Social Market Economy, helping the state to take off.

In 1948, the situation in Europe is still tensed. In the German länder, elections have been held - and in the lands under Soviet control (Saxony, Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Silesia, Mecklenburg and Pomerania), the united lists of Social Democrats and Communists got the majority. The liberated Eastern European states fear for their freedom, if they're wedged between a Communist Germany and the Soviet Union. Truman wants to clear the situation, tells Stalin to row back, which is declined. Historians agree that the situation might have gone awry, with war between East and West breaking out and the fifth bomb maybe dropped on a Russian city - but fortunately for the world, in May Stalin dies. (ITTL the stress during the years when the Germans were close to Moscow was too much.) The new Soviet government is more interested in a compromise, and they agree to retreat from East Germany over the next years, except for the soldiers needed to implement reeducation. The elections in East Germany have to be repeated, too.

In 1949, Germany is split into three states: One South German state (including Austria), one state in NW Germany, and Russian-occupied East Germany.
Germany will stay split, since the peace treaty explicitly forbids them reunification. There are three states now: The Federal German Republic in the South, where the single states (Hesse, Baden, Württemberg, Bavaria, Austria) have many rights; here, the government is made of the three main parties, being the Liberals (strongest in Baden and Württemberg, being a very mixed party), the Social Democrats (unificated party, strongest in Franconia, Hesse and big cities of Austria), and the strong German people's party (uniting Catholics and Conservatives; in Austria, it's called the *Austrian* people's party, of course); then the German Democratic Republic in NW Germany, with its capital in Cologne, governed by the Social Democrats and the Christian Zentrum party (being more pro-state than OTL Christian-Democratic Union, since Ludwig Erhard is in South Germany); and the German People's Republic, who still have a left majority, although the non-Socialist parties were readmitted.

I wonder for how long I should continue this TL... how long do you want me to go? I think I should write another bit about Israel, China, Japan and the founding of NATO, EEC and EFTA...